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Wednesday, 26 October 2016

Christmas Tree LED Pixel - WS2811 / T-1000S / Arduino Nano

I decided in 2015 to develop a few light effects for my outside Christmas Tree running on a T-1000S controller with WS2811 pixel leds. I wanted to produce some effects that were more pretty and less tacky and these were the result of a few evenings work.

The tree was setup on a 5ft tree using 150 leds. This version is no longer used since I have no moved to using an Arduino Nano v3 allowing me to generate more effects dynamically in realtime with 400 or less pixel leds @ 20fps. The Arduino source code will hopefully be shared soon.

I have decided to share the source files for the T-1000S. These are limited to the WS2811 based string lights with a maximum of 256 leds connected running @ 20fps.

I am sorting out the arduino version and will share its code soon. I have it running on a Nano v3 running 150 leds due to some of the complexity of the newer effects but it runs realtime @ 20fps and it fits my needs... with a cycling mode and effect selection and ability to enable/disable effects from running when in cycle mode.

I will be uploading a video to YouTube shortly with the version of my code running from the Christmas just gone which runs on an Arduino Mega2560 up to 400 lights or on an Arduino Nano up to 150 lights.

Hello, first your effects are greate. I have made similar project with leds on arduino (nano) https://visar78.jimdo.com . I have a question to you, could you show me your c code to generate some of the effects? I would like to add Pixie Dust, Rainbow 3, Rainbow 1 and Starry Night. My source code is available on page. Best regards

Hello Stephen, very nice project! I am not familiar with T-1000S and I have some questions:1) on ebay I can see wired LEDs (WS2811) but only with 3-wires, probably for +5V, DATA and GND (example: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wholesale-WS2811-LED-Pixel-Digital-Diffused-12mm-RGB-Light-P68-5V-12V-Black-Wire-/262844668975?var=&hash=item3d32c35c2f:m:m6ahaR4gGJlY484JzxnxVvw) but on T-1000S I need DATA and Clock (and +5V/GND) -> 4 wires. Question is, is it possible (or how) conect together? 2)your LED scripts are for 150 LEDs. Is it possible to use only 50 LEDs or 200LEDs without modify your scripts?Many thanks!

WS2811 have a built in clock function that simply commits the lights to change using a latch period. A low signal of set length. Using WS2811 pixels you only need to connect signal/data out and then connect ground to both lights, power source and controller.

The voltage should not make any difference. The signal wire (digital in/out) still uses 5v on WS2811. Whether you have 10 pixels or 500 pixels connected the T1000S will just output as much lights as the program has encoded. If their are less lights than the program the lights will work fine. If you have less lights than the program they will simply stop animating at the last node in the file. If that makes sense? This is encoded specifically for WS2811 pixels.

Your project is amazing.It would have been fine to get your code as a Christmas' present. What a pity that it did not come true.Anyway the zip files can not be opened. Most probably because of the .led extension.Or, I make something wrong.

I have been working on optimizations hoping to push its limits on the arduino version. This is very tricky but what I have done is make the device output multiple channels so that the data can split to many sets of lights.

Hello, thanks for the files for T-1000s. Works perfect on 150 WS2811.Could you share also project files (*.pjb, *.cjb)?I'm a new one in programming of T-1000, so just want to understand how-to.Thank you in advance.

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Stephen Culley

Visual effects artist and animator (BA Hons Creative Visualisation) working in the television and film industry within the United Kingdom. Specialising in 2D, 3D animation, modeling, rigging and texturing.